From The Kitchen - A People's Publication

My friend and I worked at The Working Centre downtown for a while. Over the last few years while living and working downtown, we were both meeting people from all across the board that either were writing or drawing in some capacity, and did not feel that they could or should share their creations; or wanted to be creative and felt inadequate; or simply were not able to logistically. Eric (my friend) and I feel that these expressions are not only important for individuals to process creatively for their own sake, but are vital to a democratic society where voices and life-journeys sound and look different. Many of the voices we were hearing came from backgrounds often overlooked in the dominant political arena - whether youth living on the street, single mothers, or dumpster-diving doctors. These people are a part of society - we all have voices, and the spaces where these voices can be shared in everyday life are key to bridging the gaps between different people's stories. Eric and I set forth this year to create a print publication that would simply be a collection of random submissions about anything - anything that people have drawn or written in whatever forms and styles, about anything they feel they want to share - whether about their experience on welfare, or what frying an egg means to them. The colour and brilliance that has come through the 40-some submissions is incredible. Though most are not "professionals", we believe that publication should not always be an intimidating, inaccessible process, and that individuals should feel they are worthy of sharing their art and expression even if it is not as perfect as they feel is expected. We are excited to compile and flow together such unique submissions from all different types of folks - 12 year old girls, professors, hard-working stay-at-home moms, youth with whole other perspectives of our streets, etc. We hope to print and distribute by the end of this summer, 2013. It will be hard, but awesome ;).